Difficult
by evizyt
Summary: Recovering from the war, Hermione decides on an eighth year at Hogwarts to finish her NEWTs. But instead of academics, she becomes embroiled in a tumultuous, illicit, and ultimately consumptive affair with none other than Draco Malfoy. "You and I, Granger," he told her, "we'll always be difficult." A story of new beginnings and second chances. Draco/Hermione


_A/N: I absolutely can't help it. I'm beginning another Dramione. This one will be long. It will be dramatic. It will be awesome! It will be Non-Epilogue Compliant, but otherwise DH Compliant. Welcome. Enjoy!_

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**Difficult**

prologue

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After the service ended, Hermione and Steven wandered back to her childhood home, their steps heavy on the pavement. Even after the long illness, her mother's death had still somehow surprised her, and she took solace in her father's steady presence. Rain began drizzling absently as they turned out of sight of the graveyard, and Hermione allowed herself a few more tears before looking away from the headstone.

Steven's hand snaked around her shoulders to pat her comfortably, then returned to his side. "It's how she would have wanted it, in the end."

"I know," Hermione replied. "It doesn't make it any easier for us, though."

"It doesn't," Steven agreed. "But perhaps it should. Human life isn't infinite."

Hermione thought about those words as they continued to walk and the rain grew thicker, dark thunderclouds boiling over the horizon. Human life wasn't infinite, and everyone knew it, therefore making love a risk. And yet it was a risk everyone took, for some reason, because they considered it to be worth the pain.

By the time they reached the small white house on Draper Lane, Hermione and her father were soaked to the bone. They didn't even rush for the door, understanding the futility in the action, and instead trudged solemnly through the puddles, leaving the front gate swinging in the gusting wind. Inside, Steven got them towels and put on the kettle for tea, but Hermione was slow to take hers. She relished the cold in every limb, romantically imagining that it mirrored the chill on her soul, since the loss of Helen Granger. Her hair dripped as she watched the gate swing out the window, the rain sheeting down, and she felt that everything was perfect for the day, in its own melancholy way. Somehow Helen's memory would have been disrespected if it had been bright and sunny, with birds chirping and the city bustling. This seemed more appropriate.

She watched the puddle forming beneath her, finally moving her numb limbs away from the window.

"I'm going upstairs," she called to Steven, heading for her old room. She slowly peeled off the wet clothing, dragging herself into the shower. The steam fogged over the mirror as the cold slowly disappeared from her toes, and when she finished, she could no longer see her reflection through the fogged glass.

Hermione wiped her hand over it, beading the condensation into small streaks of water. Through the streakiness she could see herself: wet curls; tired shoulders; large, sad eyes. She dressed quickly, without looking at herself again, and headed for her parents' bedroom.

She had never intended to snoop, but somehow going through her mother's clothes had turned into rummaging in the back of her closet, until she was standing on a chair, trying to drag down a large cardboard box that looked to be filled with parchment. Uncharacteristically, for Helen, the box was unlabeled and almost disorganized-looking, and Hermione drew it down with something akin to anticipation.

Whatever she was expecting, it certainly wasn't what she found. Underneath the lid, carefully folded and saved, was every letter Hermione had ever sent them from Hogwarts. It was different than her grades, her Prefect badge, her O.W.L. scores. Those were natural to save, they were milestones on the road to adulthood. These were something else entirely, and she brushed her fingers across the faded ink, her heart breaking once more in the memory of her sweet, gentle mother, who had placed each letter in this box with care, for some mysterious purpose.

She started at the bottom, sifting through the parchment that was the most faded and worn. Even back then, her handwriting had been perfect, though perhaps slightly larger than her current rather cramped style. The letters were loopier—happier, she thought.

_Dear Mum and Dad…Mummy…Dad, today we finally met Hagrid…Dear Mum, I think I may actually have met some friends…Mum, there's this place I found to study…I think the librarian dislikes me, though I can't understand why. She said you could only take out a few books at a time, which is honestly ridiculous…Hi Mum and Dad, Everything is going well, I did fantastically on an exam today. Dear Mum…I expected everyone here to be different, though I can't say how…_

Her eyes welled up and spilled over as she read through six years of her life, written in her own hand. She wondered how often Helen had done this herself, replacing each letter in order to pick up the next.

At the end of the sixth year, Hermione paused. She hadn't sent her parents any letters during their year abroad, when she and Ron and Harry had tracked down the remaining Horcruxes. And the following year had been perhaps the strangest in her life. Hesitating, she selected one of the remaining letters.

_Mum (and Dad, although he hasn't written me in weeks, the prat,) _

_Things have been strange. Like I wrote the other month, it's so odd to be back at school after everything that's happened. I can't believe that Harry and Ron also decided to stay on for an Eighth Year. I expected to be alone, you know, to be the only one that really cared about finishing my NEWTs, but I suppose they figured it might be difficult to get jobs without enough qualifications. Honestly, we don't really need them—the qualifications or the jobs. We're still being inundated with interview requests and public appearance stuff and all that nonsense. Frankly, I wondered for a while if one of them would capitulate, and try to make some money off of what we've been through. But as usual, my secretly sullen best friends have impressed me (and reminded me why we are, in fact, best friends) with their adamant refusal to participate in "such rubbish." I forgot what hermits we all are, really. _

_I think Harry will probably be a Professor for a bit after graduation. He and Ginny are still seeing each other, which is made a good deal easier by our proximity, and so I'm curious to see what will happen with that, but I can't see him doing anything other than teaching for awhile. I haven't said anything about it to him; you know how stubborn he is. But I would be willing to bet on it. As for Ron—who knows? Maybe he'll try to work for the Ministry, although I can't quite see it. He's been talking more and more about Quidditch these days, and I'm wondering if he has some idea regarding that. Only time will tell. _

_I know what you're thinking, Mum—don't even start! Ron and I are _just friends_ right now. We've been talking a lot about what happened at the end of the war, but we're both still trying to figure out who we are, now that it's all over. These things take time, and I don't feel any sort of need to rush it. At any rate, he's not dating anyone insufferable, like Lavender Brown, so everything is fine. _

_Otherwise, life goes on. Classes are pretty much as usual, and I've been doing well. Potions is perhaps the hardest, with Draco Malfoy as the new Professor. Apparently he finished his NEWTs last year (I didn't even know he'd been at Hogwarts, but I guess the Dumbledore drama was resolved, probably involving Lucius's checkbook, and he was allowed to return). Anyways, because he finished them, and Potions teachers are in rather short supply around here, and he was in Slytherin and thus apparently a qualified candidate…Well, at any rate, I didn't mention it before because everything was going fine, and even though he's our age, he was doing a relatively decent job of teaching. But Malfoy has been acting a little odd, lately. I wonder if it's because he's still working out the kinks of becoming one of the "good guys," or if he really is just the prat we always thought he was. I can respect him, for his knowledge and his educating abilities. But I don't know if I'll ever be able to respect him as a person. _

_Oh dear! It looks as if I've written more about Draco Malfoy than I have about people that I actually like. This might be hard to rectify, a it's probably because not many of them are around anymore. I don't mean to sound morbid, I just mean that most of them have graduated. Luckily Ginny is still around, and she helps us all keep sane. Even Ron hasn't been bickering with her as much, which is something to be said. And I found the best book in the library the other day. If you haven't read it, you really must…_

Hermione rubbed her eyes, glancing over the rest of the letter. It continued for another few pages, detailing some of the books she was reading, a paper she was writing, and her quest to become an Animagus. She'd forgotten so much of those small details over the years, and she imagined her mother coming up here when she was sad, seeing the picture that Hermione painted so richly in her letters of everyday Hogwarts life. She ached for Helen like a sharp pain in her side, and Steven found her up there much later, curled in a ball on the floor, surrounded by the letters.

Hermione's slept in her childhood bed that night, tossing restlessly as memories from six years ago bombarded her. Memories that she had thought never to think of again, after the strange eighth year at Hogwarts had passed. Her job at St. Mungos required little dredging through the past, and so it was with reluctance that she remembered the events of that year.

It had been a difficult year. Her only friends left were Harry, Ron, and Ginny, and all four of them were struggling to become the people that they had once been, before the ravages of the war. There was a distance between her and Ron and that felt unbreachable, and Harry went through periods of moodiness, reminding them all of how he behaved in Fifth year. Even that, Hermione could have understood. She wished that he would shout at them, and get angry, rather than this silent sulking that only Ginny seemed able to relieve. They had changed—everyone had changed, and it was hard to adapt.

She consciously didn't think about the other thing that had changed that year, the person that had changed-yet-remained-the-same, the final reason why that year had been so…difficult.

_Things will always be difficult between us, you and I, he'd told her. We're such different people. It may not be possible—this, whatever this is, it may not be possible for this to work._

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**review?**


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